Tbird will not read all my IMAP Webmail messages, but deletes those I add in Webmail
I accidentally deleted years of email by asking Tbird on my IMAP account to erase everything older than 15 days. I have now changed it to "keep till I delete" but that's no solution. All my email, including deleted email, remains on the Webmail server, and when I restore messages, they show up in the Webmail inbox, but as soon as I open my IMAP Tbird, they are deleted from the Webmail inbox again, and never make it to Tbird. I have been able to recover sporadic emails from the last year, but most are missing, and nothing over a year old comes up. I have tried opening a new Tbird profile with ProfileManager (didn't work); I have tried uninstalling Tbird and deleting the Profile under Users. . . .etc., (though I kept a copy).
However, reinstalling Tbird doesn't work because it tells me my profile is unavailable, rather than prompting me to create a new profile (why not, since my old one is gone?), and only by copying the old profile back in will it function. And then of course it immediately deletes all the deleted emails I have restored to the Webmail inbox as it did before. I may be wrong in thinking the the Profile is the problem, but it seems to me to be the culprit.
All Replies (5)
In the Thunderbird folder in appdata is a file that points to your profile, that is not gone so it is unhappy about you rudely removing the folders it points to.
However. You could undelete in Thunderbird, if your messing about with profiles and backups has not prevented that.
This add-on might help here https://freeshell.de//~kaosmos/index-en.html#recDelMsg
You'll need to restore the deleted messages to your 'Local Folders' account, and then upload them to the server again.
Sorry to be dense, but the deleted messages that I need to restore are in my Webmail Deleted folder, and there seems to be no way to move them to my "Local Folders" account in Thunderbird. I can restore the to my Webmail Inbox, but then the instant I start Thunderbird, they vanish back into the Webmail deleted folder -- still there, but still apparently inaccessible..
Thanks
Matt --- I suspect you may be right that my a) uninstalling Tbird, and then b) erasing my Profile may still leave behind a hidden profile folder that also needs to be deleted. However, before I try it (and after, of course, creating a Restore Point) I just want to make sure whether this sequence will work: a) back up Profile Folder in case of trouble b) uninstall Thunderbird c) delete the Profile folder d) do a search under the App folder for surviving profile folders e) delete them f) reinstall Thunderbird which will then presumably create a new profile which will no longer trouble me.
Many thanks.
before you do any pf that, install the add-on and apply it to the folders. It has amazing recovery powers on folders that are not compacted.
However, looking at this, IMAP being what is is perhaps your right. A) Good B) Don't bother C) type %appdata% at the start menu/run box and press enter. Delete the Thunderbird folder that appears in windows explorer D) Do not both done in C) E) done in C) F) Not needed, you did not uninstall.
Note that all this must be done with Thunderbird closed for it to work.